


Steal, Lie, or Shag

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Loki (Marvel), Conversations, F/M, Flirting, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 09:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12702519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: Loki is very good at getting what he wants. Even if he's not always sure what that is. (A missing scene fromThor: Ragnarok.)





	Steal, Lie, or Shag

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness.

It was the smell that brought Loki back to consciousness, a stench of body odor and rotting food so putrid that he gagged and almost vomited.

“Don’t you dare puke on my floor.”

“Are you sure?” he coughed. “It might improve the odor.” With some difficulty, as his arms were chained to his sides and his hands were tightly bound behind his back, Loki managed to hoist himself off the cold tile floor and into a sitting position. “What is this foul place?”

He was rewarded for his question with a sharp smack upside the head. “Don’t be rude,” said Valkyrie as she walked past. “I live here.”

Loki’s face contorted in disgust. “You live _here_? Well, that’s just not right!”

“What, are your rooms nicer than this?”

“They’re cleaner, at least. If you were to let bygones be bygones, I’d be happy to share them with you.” He tried to inch his backside away from a pile of what he hoped was dirty clothing. “You deserve better than this.”

She paused in pouring herself a drink of something or other to side-eye him. He was angling for something, but her instincts said that it wasn’t anything as obvious as simply releasing him. “Why?”

“Because you’re a Valkyrie,” Loki said, with a grin that was briefly, sincerely, awestruck. “You’re practically a creature of legend. And you kicked my arse, that’s got to count for something.”

“You really think I’m just going to untie you because you smiled at me and admitted that I’m better in a fight than you are?”

“Of course you’re a better fighter than me. You’re a Valkyrie. I’d be ashamed to triumph over one of your order.”

“Oh, for the – oh, shit.” Some of her drink had spilled and she was rapidly trying to wipe it up before it burned through the counter. Loki wasn’t entirely sure what it was. From the eye-watering smell, it was a combination of several fermented liquors and probably some engine degreaser. “Nice. Not your first time trying to talk your way out of chains, is it?”

He husked out a laugh that did unexpected things to her spine. “Ohhh, I’m very good at getting what I want, and making other people happy to help me. Do you know what they used to call me, back on Asgard? Loki Silvertongue.”

“You must have been very popular with the court ladies,” said Valkyrie dryly, strolling closer with her glass in one hand and the bar towel. She wasn’t going to take any chances of getting _too_ close, but she wanted to see more of him. And hear more.

“Ladies, men, everything in between and everything else you can think of. And some you probably can’t.”

She crouched down. “So you get around, is what you’re saying.”

“I really just _love_ people. In the carnal sense, mostly.” His green eyes wandered over her body very appreciatively. She thought about taking offense to that, but decided it wasn’t worth her time. A man in chains was allowed some liberties. She leaned in to give him a better look.

He gasped sharply and leaned away. Valkyrie grinned. “Scared of me, Your Highness?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s not your title? I mean, if you’re Thor’s brother—”

“Adopted.”

“And he’s Odin’s son, that must mean you’re a prince.”

“You could say that,” Loki agreed, sourly. “God, you reek. What the hell _is_ that stuff?”

“Best not to ask,” she advised, taking a sip. “I don’t.” She speared him with a look and he froze. “Are you afraid of me, Loki?” she asked, softly and evenly.

“...Yes.”

But he didn’t look it. If anything, he looked... Valkyrie glared at him, and then rolled her eyes in disgust. “Oh, come off it!”

“What? You thrashed me thoroughly and then chained me up, I can’t help it if that happens to work for me!”

“And am I going to find out what else ‘works’ for you?” Valkyrie continued, voice getting even softer and colder. Loki shook his head slowly, eyes never leaving her face. “Before, when you touched me, when you looked inside my head. You could have put something in there. Some sort of mind control—”

“No,” said Loki, so sharply that Valkyrie immediately accepted his statement as fact, even as she realized that was likely what he wanted. “I don’t do that. I _won’t_ do that.”

She snorted. “Sure.”

“I know what it’s like to be taken over, body and soul, by a power you want nothing to do with.” His voice was quietly decisive, but there was a shake to it. And a shame. It was the shame that caught her attention. Up to now, she would have said that he didn’t have any. “I can’t do that to people anymore.”

“So you used to.”

“...Yes. Once or twice. Once, I destroyed a man. I couldn’t put him back together, so I didn’t bother... but it wasn’t a pretty result, and I do so like to be tidy.”

Valkyrie purposely dropped her dirty bar towel on his foot. He grimaced but went on.

“Now when I want something, I get it the old-fashioned way. Steal, lie, or shag.”

“That explains how you got into the Grandmaster’s favour so quickly.”

“‘Quickly’! I spent two weeks on my back getting into his favour! And a variety of other interesting and uncomfortable positions.”

“I remember.” Valkyrie took a swig from the bottle and smirked. “I came in for a meeting with the boss and they said he was ‘indisposed’, but he insisted he’d see me. So I went into his bedroom... and met you coming out.” She leveled an all-knowing gaze at Loki and waited for him to look away. But there was none of the shame she had seen before.

Begrudgingly, she had to admit that it brought him up a few notches in her opinion. She admired physically shameless people. She swept her eyes thoughtfully over his long, leather-clad form. “I remember when you got first here, actually. Dressed head to foot in black and green. Put a bad taste in my eyes.”

“Interesting way of expressing it, but I can see that. It did give me a bit of a shock, seeing Hela for the first time and realizing we used the same fashion consultant.”

“Why’d you change?”

Loki pursed his lips and looked out the window, wondering how much to reveal. “I spent the better part of my life dressed in those colors. A little white for accent here, a little gold for effect there, but always black and green, never anything brighter. I always told myself it was because I wanted to stay in the shadows, but even as a boy I wondered if those were the clothes I got because Odin _wanted_ me to stay in Thor’s shadow. Of course, now I wonder if he just gave me his demon firstborn’s hand-me-downs because he wasn’t willing to spend the money for new clothes, and never realized they were cursed.”

“...Honestly, that sounds like something he’d do.”

“Ah, of course, you knew him.” Although in Asgardian terms they were considered part of the same rough age bracket, Valkyrie was actually two or three thousand years his senior, and she had fought in countless battles at Odin’s side. Loki regarded his captor with further fresh interest.

“I knew him,” she muttered. “You poor bastard, it must’ve been hell, having him for a father.”

“It – ” Loki stopped short, feeling the old pain of Odin’s disappointment and the undying rage of his rejection, and the new, bittersweet ache of hearing that his father did truly love him, before losing him forever. “It wasn’t exactly easy having me for a son.”

“Or Thor, I’d wager,” Valkyrie snorted, rising and going to get more dubious alcohol. She rounded the corner with an easy stride, giving Loki a nice view of her strong legs and back. “Sorry you’re going to end up on the end of the Grandmaster’s melting stick, by the way, since you’re obviously not going to make his deadline. You’re a liar and a bastard, but you’re not so bad. And you’re kind of cute.” Her head suddenly appeared around the corner. “I meant ‘bastard’ as an insult, not as, you know. Actual parentage.”

She was right on both counts, though Loki saw no need to enlighten her on that score. He also saw no pressing need to die for the Grandmaster’s insane amusement. He had been the plaything of one far-too-powerful being in his lifetime, and that was enough. So the priority was to escape. First from the chains, then from Valkyrie, then from the Grandmaster’s palace, and then finally, from Sakaar itself.

Two things occurred to him at the same moment. The first was that he was going to need help to do all four of those things. His _seidr_ had been sapped by three years of near-constant illusory projection, and his physical strength and dexterity was nothing compared to the skills of a Valkyrie. The second was that he wanted the money for Thor’s capture, and he wasn’t going to be able to collect on it unless he actually _captured_ Thor.

A third thing occurred to him on its own. Age, he reflected, might bring greater experience by default, but it did not always bring wisdom. He’d always had a weakness for older women. And the feeling was often surprisingly mutual. So she thought he was cute...

Loki let out a loud sigh. “Sometimes I wonder if I was always meant to be the villain. I never wanted adulation before, just acknowledgment. Now I’ll take all the adulation I can get.”

“Or all the terrified obedience?” She returned with an even more potent drink and an expression of exhausted disgust. “You’re not unique, you know. Universe is full of men like you. Little men with little worldviews and delusions of grandeur.” Her choice of words seemed to have an effect on him. “I’m surprised you haven’t tried conquering some planet or other yet.”

“I have. Tried it, I mean. Wasn’t for me. I’m not cut out to be the tyrannical sort. It’s too much work. I’m really all for the quiet life.”

“...Riiight.” She plopped down on the floor next to him, knocking back half of the bottle in one go. “As villains go, you’re not making a good case for yourself.”

“I know. Embarrassing, isn’t it? I was born to one king and raised by another, but all I’m really good at is making trouble for people and weaseling out of it so that someone else takes the blame. I might be a prince, but I wasn’t born to be a hero.” Loki leaned forward in his chains. “Now, you...”

“Oh, don’t even try. I know I’m no hero.”

“You certainly don’t act the part. Or smell like it,” he added, his fastidious nose wrinkling as the alcoholic fumes wafted off of her and threatened to peel the paint off the walls. “But we can’t escape who we were born to be. I was born to be a trickster, you to be a hero. And Thor – and I cannot believe I’m going to say this and if you _ever_ tell him I said so, I will _kill_ you – Thor was born to be a king.” Loki grimaced and lowered his voice. “Asgard needs its king.”

“I don’t give a damn about Asgard.”

“I thought the same thing, once. But the thing is... it keeps calling. To Thor, to me... to you. Odin lied to all of us, cast out all of his children one by one. But he’s gone. And Asgard is in danger.” Loki smiled gently. “You need to find Thor. He needs your help.”

Valkyrie looked at him in bleary dismay. He could see the gears turning slowly in her booze-soaked head, and when she scrubbed her hand across her face and got to her feet, he knew he had her.

“Don’t think this is your doing,” she snapped, grabbing a gun as she went out. “I’m doing this because _I_ want to.”

“Of course you are,” Loki called after her encouragingly. The door came down behind her with the sound of several hundred locks engaging. He tested his chains again, found them as secure as before, and sighed. “I hope she doesn’t get herself killed,” he muttered. “I need to use the bathroom.”

* * *

“I’m impressed,” Valkyrie said, much _much_ later, after Asgard’s people were saved and they had hidden themselves away in the depths of space. She leaned against a bulkhead in the corridor and looked up at the trickster thoughtfully. “Back on Sakaar. You convinced me to do exactly what you wanted me to do.”

Loki laughed softly, more at himself than at her. “Actually, what I’d wanted you to do was to untie me. I accidentally convinced you to do what was right.” And in the process, he knew, he had somehow convinced himself as well. There was something poetic about that.

“And you managed to do it without lying, stealing, or trying to get in my pants.”

“Much as it pains me to admit it, I didn’t think I had a chance at any of those. And sometimes the unvarnished truth is its own best weapon.” He paused. “Well, maybe a little varnished.”

“You never once asked me to let you go.”

“Maybe I liked being tied up by you.” His green eyes flared briefly with an admiring fire. “I did say that sort of thing worked for me.”

She tipped her head to one side, sizing him up and not bothering to hide it. “Care to try it again? Say, tonight?”

“Just tying me up? Or...” Loki spread his hands questioningly, and waited.

“You bring the chains, I’ll bring the booze.” Valkyrie turned and strode away down the corridor with a smile. “We’ll see what happens.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are deeply appreciated. ❤


End file.
